Word.ws English Dictionary

guolaosi

Syllables: guo·lao·si

guolaosi noun: death from overwork.

Noun

guolaosi (uncountable)

  1. Death from overwork.
    • They say that Chinese workers in factories supplying Wal-Mart are dying from guolaosi—“overwork death”—from working upwards of fifteen hours a day, seven days a week, for months on end in a frenzy to quickly and cheaply fill demand ...2005, Melissa Rossi, What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World, →ISBN
    • Asia estimated that by June 2006 the number of deaths attributed to guolaosi in China had reached six hundred thousand per year.2007, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Unmarketable
    Synonyms:
    gwarosa, karoshi

Examples of guolaosi in a sentence

  • But the villagers said it was the new disease, guolaosi.2011, Eric Clark, The Real Toy Story: Inside the Ruthless Battle for Britain's Youngest Consumers, →ISBN:
  • Although difficult to calculate, one prominent newspaper estimates that guolaosi claims the lives of 600 000 people in China each year.2015, Steven McShane, Mara Olekalns, Alex Newman, Organisational Behaviour 5e; Emerging Knowledge, →ISBN:
  • Such a concept is also recognised in South Korea where it is referred to as gwarosa (과로사/過勞死) and in China, overwork-induced suicide is called guolaosi (过劳死).2017 July 16, “Dying Through Overwork. Working Hours in Asia.”, in Bird & Bird, archived from the original on 02 Jun 2025:
  • In South Korea, it's called gwarosa (과로사) and in China, guolaosi (過勞死／过劳死).2022 July 12, Dwayne J. Clark, “KAROSHI CULTURE: A WARNING TO WORKAHOLICS”, in Dwayne J. Clark, archived from the original on 26 Mar 2023:

Synonyms of guolaosi

Origin of guolaosi

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 過勞死 /过劳死 (guòláosǐ), from Japanese 過労死 (karōshi). Doublet of gwarosa and karoshi.

Questions about guolaosi

What does guolaosi mean?
Guolaosi means death from overwork.
How do you use guolaosi in a sentence?
But the villagers said it was the new disease, guolaosi.
What part of speech is guolaosi?
Guolaosi is a noun.

Words near guolaosi in the dictionary

  1. gunzips
  2. Guo
  3. Guo'anbu
  4. Guoanbu
  5. guokui
  6. guolaosi
  7. Guomindang
  8. guoqing
  9. Guos
  10. Guosa
  11. guotie

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: guolaosi (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “guolaosi.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/guolaosi. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.